“For a man, it is scary to imagine growing old without a spouse. It is a battle,” revealing thought-provoking piece Ogunlesi, a Professor of Medicine at Olabisi Onabanjo College of Medicine, penned on how, almost always, the journey ends for the so-called family head
I visited a friend somewhere in Ibadan and in the course of driving me round on a sight-seeing spree, we got to an area with stretches of modest buildings. It was a typical civil servant arena: the houses were beautifully designed bungalows built in the British architectural patterns interspersed with occasional storey buildings.
Notably, most of the buildings had attached to the frontage, obviously more recently built shops and kiosks. The buildings themselves were, of course, old and weather-beaten.
My friend explained further. Most of the owners of those buildings, the highly respected landlords of yore, were long gone. They were the civil servants and businessmen of the eighties and nineties.
Most of these main buildings had been rented out and only in a few of them, the landladies, as they were known, were still in charge. My friend further analysed that many of those landladies who were still in those buildings were actually wives married at the twilight of the landlords’ reigns. The senior wives were either long gone like the landlords or have left the Nigerian shores and are not likely to return home ever again. This encounter set me thinking. Ibadan in this instance is just a prototype; it is the same scenario in Lagos, Ilorin, Akure, Abeokuta, Ado-Ekiti and probably Warri and Benin-City.
Just a few days before my trip to Ibadan, a senior colleague shared his worries with me. His concern about the rave of “japa”, for us in our profession, is not just about a decline in health workforce and the spill-over effect on the nation’s health statistics. He said he was also worried about who will take care of our own generation when we grow old to that point where dependence becomes mandatory. It is worrisome that three out of five young people in Southern Nigeria are either planning or already processing how to migrate.
A Man, And Then What? Sometimes Shed Tears; Here’s Why
You Want To Live Long? Get a Second Wife, Study Says
Andropause: Men’s Menopause And Its Many Mysteries
Lies People Aged 40 and Above Believe about Their Health + Risk, Danger
Putting the two encounters together highlighted how most unfairly, life treats a lot of men, at a point in life when they are most vulnerable. Career men, particularly civil servants and those employed in the organised private sector, usually set out early in life to achieve two things: build a modest house and comfortably sponsor their children’s education outside the country. These two are preparatory to their post-retirement comfort. Like, their own future investments too. So these men laboured all their lives, when their bones were still very strong, to pool resources for the two goals mentioned above.
In the sixties and seventies, when young people travelled out of the country for greener pastures, and the colonial masters had no reason to “poach” because they had enough human resources, they were returning home to enrich the land with the skills and competencies they acquired overseas and the cycle continued. These days, nobody travelling out of the country ever plans on returning home. Let us be factual. We know home is the best but, the question is: return home to do what? Anyhow, that is not the focus of the present discourse.
So, the man, who laboured all his life to raise his five children and make his wife comfortable may end up in penury and misery after retirement. Why? Because the trend at this moment is for women in the cities to abandon their husbands in Nigeria and embark on “omugwo” trips. It is apparently more appealing to migrate to Europe and Asia under the guise of helping their children who are based abroad to raise the grandchildren.
Again, why? All sorts of reasons, including but not limited to the child protection laws across Europe which criminalises leaving children unminded. Reasonable law, no doubt. Nobody wants children needlessly and avoidably getting drowned or electrocuted. Nice excuse.
Economic pressures too. The immediate parents are either in school or jumping two or three jobs to make ends meet. So, someone has to stay with their own children. They claim it is extremely expensive employing a minder. One of such people had actually told me she spends up to a third of her pay on minders.
So, Mama will need to come over to Europe. Mama needs to help mind the little children so the parents can concentrate on their career, education and jobs and also save up significantly since they do not have to pay those vampires called minders.
Mama is excited to go to Europe. She remembers Mrs Gbadero is in Atlanta Georgia, Mrs George is in Ontario while Mrs Grillo is in Leicester. So she suddenly gets tired of Nigerian “wahala”. She suddenly realizes looking after her grandchildren is more desirable and profitable at that point in her life than looking after her husband. That is when she will remember she has actually been “tolerating” her husband’s excesses. That is when she will remember how the man came back home drunk and vomited all over the place and she had to clean up the mess. When? Twenty-Three years ago!
‘Wedding Altar To Grave,’ Tale of New Couple Killed In Lagos Explosion
‘Why Black Africa Men Are at Greater Risk of Prostate Enlargement, Cancer’
Tears of A Wife Can Cure An Aggressive Husband – Study
The More You Hang Out With Your Mom, The Longer She’ll Live – Study
In all these permutations, Papa does not feature anywhere. Mama is quick to say “Your father is not a kid. He will look after himself”. A 65-year old man. Mama will suddenly remember Papa has a kid sister who lives in the next community, some one hour drive away. She will even suggest employing a house help to assist Papa with making his meals. Somebody who is already dreaming of her flight to Heathrow or JFK!!
Some children are so selfish, they are only bothered about how many pounds or dollars they will save up when Mama comes over. In their minds, they will send xghyszf dollar or pound to Papa every month. That sounds like paying him some compensation for snatching his wife in old age. Do they bother if a 65-year old man will need to boil water and grip a turning stick to make Ẹ̀bà or Àmàlà? Or the man will need to go into the neighbourhood to search for an idle child he could send on errand to search for food items or consumables he doesn’t have at home? Or will the man put those hard currencies inside a plate for breakfast or send the hard currencies to get him toiletries from the store down the street? So, sending him money does not solve the problem the children have created by taking his wife away from him.
In fact, the man gets exposed to levels of ridicules. Papa may find favour with a little child next door. At the onset, the mother of the child may not mind allowing him to go on errand for Papa, especially if Papa has been a nice person in the neighbourhood. At some points, the mother will start expecting Papa to let the child come back home with little change after running errands else, they begin to label Papa as miserly. Thereafter, when Papa goes to call the child to send him on errand, the mother will tell Papa the boy is busy attending to his school assignments or house chores. When the matter gets to that point, Papa becomes very vulnerable and susceptible to exploitation. He has no choice but to accept whatever conditions are brought before him as preconditions to get his issues resolved. Stylish extortions will begin since they know his children overseas wire money to him.
Even if Papa has a maid, the problem is still not fully resolved. Over time, the house maid grows wings and becomes a force to reckon with in Papa’s house. Papa begins to skip his baths and starve, his laundry does not get done on time, his home environment gather dusts and very often, his money gets missing as the house help begins to help himself or herself to some. In the extreme, a retiree who lives alone or lives with a stranger but is widely known to have children all over Europe becomes a prey.
Apart from material things, Papa remembers when he was younger and the children would be all over the house playing, fighting, reporting to him etc. He wishes he could have such moments again. But it is impossible. One child is in the UK, one in US, one in Canada, one in UAE and the other one in Australia. The best they could offer him would be teleconferencing and differences in time zones may also not allow all of them to participate at the same time. Papa will remain lonely. Indeed, he may never see all the children together at the same time, again.
Adeola Yusuf: A Profile of Excellence In 600 Words
After Platforms Africa Report, Oil Ministry Director Queried, Minister Disowns Claim
Ìlú Àjé: Untold Story Of The ‘Town Of Witches’ In Oyo
Buy One, Get One Free: Igbo-Ora, A Town, And Its Mystery of Twins
Marry, Divorce or Die, You Have Fingers To Lose; Damn Tale of Dani Tribe
Things get worse with Papa, when as it often happens in life, the children overseas also get overwhelmed with their own financial commitments and begin to struggle to send Papa money. The allowances begin to get delayed, dwindle and sometimes missed till it eventually stops. At that point, Papa will need to go back to his own investments or savings. God helps him if he doesn’t have much saved up or invested with remarkable yields. He is left alone, all by himself, except for Baba Kayode or Baba Jaiyeola, his next door neighbours. Unfortunately, Papa will not be able to disclose his true financial status to those friends. Why not? Because it is not culturally acceptable to discuss your children’s fortunes or otherwise, with “outsiders”.
If things don’t improve economically, sustaining the bills become impossible and the house maid leaves. Papa goes back to doing his laundry, doing his dishes, doing his sweeping and making his food, all by himself. With age-imposed weakness, worsening sight, reduced hearing, and poor coordination, he may spill hot water on himself or slip, fall and break a bone. When he juxtaposes how he started life, how he denied himself pleasurable things of life when he was in his prime, so as to save up for the care of those children and how he never denied his wife any comfort, Papa will most likely slip into depression. That may really be the end if help does not come on time!
Men who do not have religious, cultural and economic inhibitions will take another wife at the point of obviously not coping with Mama’s absence. I guess they cannot be faulted for their choices. Survival first. That way, loneliness is removed and there is someone whose sociocultural duty it is to take care of him. It may be argued that Papa is selfish for taking a second wife. Are the children not selfish? They took his wife away from him at a point he was most vulnerable, because they wanted to minimise their own expenses or because, for whatever reasons, they preferred to give their mother a better life experience. Head or tail, they deprived the man of the affection and care of his wife in his old age. This is a man who most likely, sacrificed his all to get the children to that point.
Men are naturally dependent on their wives. And they grow old and age gracefully when they are happy. What makes a man happy? A wife who respects him, cares for him and stays with him to watch over the children as they excel. When a woman makes life miserable for her man, the man has two open choices. Either to stay in that marriage and gradually melt away in sorrow or get his peace and happiness from an alternative source and live longer. This is with due considerations for the religious teachings he professes to obey. This will explain my friend’s observation that where those buildings are still standing, they are mostly occupied by the second wives of the owners, probably married when the first wives became “unavailable”. This is not about whether polygamy is right or wrong. There have been situations where a man started life with two wives and in his old age, neither of the wives stays with him. That’s another side to the dice.
I encourage young couple around me to please make their own plans for how they will look after their own children, without depriving either of their parents, the affection and comfort they deserve in their old age. If you are planning to travel abroad, please have a clear plan of how to raise enough money to hire minders and maids, so you do not become the reason your parents are separated in their old age, so you do not become the reason your father takes a second wife that he actually never planned for, so you do not become the reason your father dies after leading a miserable life in an environment where he used to be highly respected. Mothers should choose to stay with their husbands when the kids approach with offers of travelling overseas. In the setting of true love, spouses should have extreme difficulties leaving the warmth of one another.
For a man, it is scary to imagine growing old without a spouse. It is a battle.
Ogunlesi is a Professor of Medicine at Olabisi Onabanjo College of Medicine
Platforms Africa
